Jack Layton – “We can’t support a budget that gets the priorities so wrong.”

This budget hurts the unemployed, the environment, and the economy. Shame.

Since I bought a car a couple years ago I find I don’t take the bus anymore. It’s a hasstle to wait up to an hour for the scheduled bus to come. The buses are never on time so I have to go to the stop 10 minutes early to find the bus is running 5 minutes late. Then I get weaved through parts of the city I didn’t even know existed to get to the mall or the store or whereever I’m going. Wash, rinse, repeat for any transfers I have to make and the ride home. On top of it all, I have to pay for the ride. So why would I do this when I can just hop in my gas-guzzling car and be home and done 15 minutes later? Well, I would want do it to help save the environment. If passes were “free” it makes taking the bus more appealing to me. I imagine there are many others who are in my situation.

The problem with Edmonton’s AirMiles system is that it takes sooo many points to get a pass. I might be able to get one every year or two. They should push harder to get the number of points required down. They should petition credit card companies that have points systems to offer the same deal. Maybe I get a pass from AirMiles this month, and one from my VISA credit card the next month.

Although I have visited the Huron Wind Farm near Kinkardine a number of times, I have never really been near any wind turbine that has been moving at very much speed. So I am not going to vouch for how noisy they are. I find it interesting though that Huron Wind claims in their fact file that

<< The noise produced by the Vestas wind turbines selected by Huron Wind is about 43
decibels at a distance of 250 metres. This is about the same as normal conversation.
Ambient noise in this area is normally above 50 decibels because of nearby industry. >>

This is very interesting. Ashbee and Lormand in the CBC article are claiming the turbines create a large whooshing noise that can be heard throughout their house, which is 450 meters from the nearest turbine. Not something you would expect from something that should be normal conversation level 200 meters away. This leads me to believe that either whoever installed those wind turbines installed the cheaper, noisier, crappier models, or Ashbee and Lormand have super hearing, or Vestas lies about the noise levels produced.

I have read before that wind farms are generally intended to live slightly off-shore. There are no trees to worry about, no bats to kill, and no houses to disturb there. Perhaps some of the models of wind turbines ignore trying to make them quiet because this is where they intend to deploy them.

Rather than banish the idea of wind farms as the article seems to be implying, a better idea may be to study, with actual decible meters and double-blind studies and all, the affects of wind turbine noise from different manufacturers and models of wind turbines. Following the studies government should implement regulations on turbines within a certain distance of residential areas. New installations can adhere to these standards and old installations can be retrofitted.

Wind energy is nothing new. Windmills have existed for a very long time. Local farms have used small windmills to generate electricity for the farm for many years. What is new is using wind energy on a large scale. Proper research and regulations need to be in affect to ensure the safety of everyone around the large-scale installations.

As many of you know, HBC’s The Bay recently installed wind turbines at their Waterloo location. I think it would be really awesome if Perimeter incorporated similar Green initiatives in the building expansion, whether it be wind turbines or solar panels. The Bay’s wind turbines are rumoured to be large enough to power the store, which I think is totally possible for PI.

I was in Toronto recently and saw OCAD’s Sharp Centre for Design. The first thing that popped into my head when I saw that building was “wow, that’s what Perimeter should be”. It’s amazing to see a building on stilts like that and makes your jaw drop in awe. Perimeter doesn’t do this for me; I just see yet another cement and glass building. Maybe I need an architect to convince me why Perimeter’s building is special as it is because I just don’t see it.

I had more to write, but I am just noticing the time is after 1am; I have to work tomorrow. Good night all.

What the ad failed to mention is all of the income tax breaks that the Liberals are suggesting. ALL of the imposed taxes will be offset by tax cuts. I urge you to go to thegreenshift.ca and learn for yourself the proposed Liberal plan. Don’t listen to Harper’s lies.

I have had for the longest time two cactii that were given to me by my parents. These cactii love me. I ignore them, sparsely water them, and sometimes run out the door in a hurry in the morning without opening the curtains for them to have sunlight. Yet they flourish.

I also have some lucky bamboo that was given to me by my brother as a graduation gift. The lucky bamboo is now 3 years old and doing pretty well. I had to learn a hard lesson that lucky bamboo does not like the city water here in Waterloo. My guess is it’s all that fluoridation that Waterloo adds to the water. I now brita filter all of the water I give my plants and they are happier.

When 1337hax0r and I were living in the townhouse closer to the university we tried creating a small potted garden on our patio. We had lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries (which were kept just inside the patio door), a bunch of herbs, along with some other things planted. 1337hax0r had some really cool ideas for self watering systems that never came to fruition because unfortunately there was a huge infestation of earwigs that year. All of the plants that grew outdoors were ate up faster than they could grow by the earwigs. Surprisingly enough, I still have two of the strawberry plants now 4 years later. These are the toughest strawberry plants I have ever come across. I almost kill them every other month.

Part of my problem with growing plants is that the apartment I have currently is on the North-West side of a building. The apartment only gets direct sunlight from about 3:30pm on in the summer. The other problem I get is that the humidity is all over the scale. The water in the pot never evaporates at a consistent rate so I end up over watering or under watering quite regularly.

Over the last month or so I have been trying to grow some herbs from seed. I wanted to grow something that would be useful in my day-to-day life, and herbs yut that bill. I started some chives and dill in two small pots on my window sill at the beginning of August, and a couple weeks later some thyme. So far I have managed to get them to grow and keep them alive; although just barely.